I really cannot understand how it's possible to judge, compete in or deterministically predict the outcome of a rule system where the idea is to make someone step by pushing them, but only if you push them really gently. It's like a football match where kicking it towards the goal is a foul.

At around 00:15-00:18 she warns us to be calm, not like the guy who was yelling about the unfairness of all the shoving and rushing and wrestling in the previous match.

At 00:42, when she stops us, she lectures Clarita on taiji—strength should be coming from the legs, not the hands. "Your arms are too stiff!"

At 1:21, the judge says "You hit him in the head three times!" and gives Clarita a warning. And then she clarifies that the warning is for all three bonks, not one warning per bonk (which would have ended the match).

At 1:50 she stops us for "locking up" and she claims that there's no "neutralizing" going on.

at 2:28 she is about to stop us again, but then the timekeeper calls time.

During the break she insists that she wants to see taiji, not wrestling, and complains that Clarita is putting her hands wrong in the neutral position.

at 3:51 she stops us because Clarita is hanging on to me to keep her balance.

at 4:22 she really gets annoyed because Clarita had hung on again—despite being cautioned thirty seconds earlier—and pulled me down atop her, and I get a point on the foul. She's basically yelling at the judges that she can't believe that happened again, and warns Clarita that she would be DQed from an exhibition match, which she hastens to add is especially ridiculous.

At 4:56 she complains that Clarita's fingers are pointing at me instead of pointing up.

At 5:21 I get a point for the trip, and the judge tells Clarita that when she feels herself being unbalanced, she should just loosen up and "go out" because being stiff is what led to her tripping and falling over completely. At this point, the judge had stopped being annoyed at Clarita and just started trying to keep her from accidentally hurting herself (which wasn't going to happen unless one of the seated judges decides to hit her with a chair). Clarita responds that she is having a lot of fun.

Rivington, why do none of the guys from the "bad ass" group enter the competition?

Some of them do have tourney experience of various sorts—this particular ICMAC circuit is relatively new and was on the ass end of San Francisco. Probably a combination of long experience with bullshit tournaments, being old, being more interested in whatever in-school things they have going on (it's easy to be the champ when your teacher runs the show!), and preferring the tournaments that crop up in the East Bay. A couple of the people from Bad-Ass Park did run a seminar on Friday night about pushing hands, but blew off Saturday judging. (I didn't attend any Friday seminars; it's easy enough to find someone ready to lecture about push hands for free by standing in a park and waiting five minutes.) One was to judge on Saturday, but did not appear.